The artwork of neon benders Tom Wartman and Greg Pond will light the way next Sunday when the American Sign Museum celebrates a full year in its Camp Washington location.

When visitors enter the museum’s Mail Pouch room to view its all-Cincinnati display, they might recognize some signs, but it’s unlikely they’ll be able to tell which glowing glass tubes were repaired or replaced by the Neonworks of Cincinnati partners – they’re that good.

“I think these two were made by Tom and Greg,” said museum founder Tod Swormstedt while running his fingers along the two “E’s” in “Beer” on a sign that once graced the exterior of the Wagon Wheel Cafe in Bridgetown.

“It’s hard,” said Swormstedt of neon tube bending. “But they make is look easy, as most experts do.”

Wartman and Pond’s 22-year-old business is inside the American Sign Museum on Monmouth Street. Its north wall is glass and faces out onto the museum’s one-of-a-kind Main Street display of historical signs that include a massive 1963 McDonald’s golden arches sign restored by Neonworks.

Visitors can watch the benders at work Wednesday through Friday. They might even be invited into the workshop for a quick lesson.

Last week, Wartman was working on an over-the-mantel French phrase for a customer from Nantucket, Mass., heating the white tube with a cross fire burner until it was malleable enough to bend into letters – about 500 to 520 degrees.

The hot tubes are bent by bare hands, yet no fingers are burned.

“The tendency is to bend too soon when you’re first learning because you feel like you’re losing control,” said Wartman, who learned from his brother, Steve, who learned from his father Lou, who owned a shop in Covington called Lou’s Neon Signs.

Oftentimes, the benders employ a blow hose to put pressure in the tubes so they hold their shape and don’t kink. Or the benders will place the hot tube on a sheet of bronze mesh and gently smooth rough spots with a flat piece of fireproof malanite.

Pond learned to bend tubes in his 40s after working in the construction field. He saw an ad for a six-week glass tube bending program in “Signs of the Times” trade magazine (ironically published by Swormstedt’s family since 1906), signed up and was hooked.

“For me, it was just so much fun. It was a labor of love for sure,” Pond said.